I have so little time these days, so I tried to do something different with my review responses this time, which I may or may not do in the future. I answered them all at once. Here.
mypersonaljesus chapter 13 . Apr 5 - Very classy, thank you for the review.
mordantmonkey69 chapter 24 . Feb 1 - I love it too, thank you!
forthealliance93 chapter 24 . Jan 30 - I fully intend to. This is a slow time of year for me, but there is no stopping it.
570K4 chapter 23 . Jan 30 - Surprises abound! Watch out for more...
Way of the Sheikah chapter 24 . Jan 29 - I hope he has satisfactorily de-funked her! And yeah... It should get real interesting when legion shows up... On the other hand, she's pretty cool with Jane and we all know what they had to do to bring her back. Conrad knows how to write a fic!
Narcrotic chapter 24 . Jan 26 - Narcrotic, buddy! I showed you mine, now where's yours?
tlktojpw chapter 24 . Jan 26 - I haven't lost my mind yet. Yet. I do think I owe the readers a little smut, don't you think? It's been a while. I'm thinking something for the Shakarian fans next.
Ultramarine756 chapter 24 . Jan 26 - Thanks, buddy! Yeah, I took liberties.
dogboat333 chapter 24 . Jan 26 - Thanks mate! I hope you like this one.
wanako chapter 24 . Jan 26 - Shotgun wielding quarians can be pretty brutal. I really wish they had some kind of close-combat options for squadmates in games. Tali would have wrecked the place.
nobodez chapter 24 . Jan 25 - Damn. I swear I was going to do this. But I think I went in a bit of a different direction. Here's a quick and terrible summary: Suffice to say that she started playing around with Morinth like a cat with a mouse, then she lost complete control of her mental faculties.
Facemelter chapter 24 . Jan 25 - Tali has seen a lot of death over the years, particularly as a marine and as part of Shep's crew. I hate to say it, but one does tend to become desensitized to that sort of thing, especially when they're the one dealing the death. Tali definitely has some wetwork in the future, and I had no idea that there were even female Predators. I guess I just assumed they reproduced clonally. As for Tali, I imagine her need to keep things at close range would necessitate developing a wide range of combat skills, to include hand to hand and edged weapons.
Thank you for comparing me to venomRED and saying such kind things! I fear that I've begun to lose my touch. And as for my schedule... Yeah... Kinda blew that one up...
And thank you! I've begun to really like that chapter!
Dragaros chapter 24 . Jan 25 - I always deliver a happy ending!
Mithendel chapter 24 . Jan 25 - I'm glad to hear from you! I can only hope to please.
xenomorphlover09 chapter 24 . Jan 25 - I will!
mivpus chapter 24 . Jan 25 - mivpus! Buddy! I'm always happy to hear from you and YOU are one of the greats! I hope I don't keep you up too late this time.
McKaye chapter 24 . Jan 25 - Don't be scared! I've never written anything that frightening, have I?
Mr Vaz chapter 24 . Jan 25 - Thank you! I love EDI and Joker. How can anyone not bring them together? And no, Xen won't be a permanent crewmember, but the might be a recurring character... Now that I have said that, I will say this: HOLY CRAP IT'S AWESOME TO HEAR FROM YOU.
SilentPony chapter 24 . Jan 25 - And this, I hope, will remedy some of your concerns...
Suffering Soldier chapter 24 . Jan 25 - Yes, I thought about ending Morinth that way, but I feel that Tali needed something more fitting an enraged spouse. No, not MLP. Here's a hint: Anime.
Karamazov chapter 24 . Jan 25 - No punches pulled here! Have you read about my Jane?
ConradVernerN7 chapter 24 . Jan 25 - WOW! Thank you for the praise. We all just do what we can to open our minds to others.
Silhouette55 chapter 24 . Jan 25 - Lol, remind me not to get on your bad side!
Narcrotic chapter 23 . Jan 21 - But it all worked out, didn't it?
Silhouette55 chapter 23 . Jan 19 - Hmmm... He might...
...
LAST CHAPTER RECAP: Tali went ape-shit on Morinth.
TITLE: Stein Um Stein
...
Before Last Chapter
...
"How's Nee?"
Whose knee is she talking about? My knee? My knee is fine. It's my head that's killing me.
"Bad," the other woman whispered, sounding far away, "He came out of it a little while ago, but we had to put him back under. He kept screaming, just screaming… It was… I'm sorry, I should stop."
Who are they talking about? Keelah, that poor person... It sounds so... Terrible.
Just the thought of this man in agony made her heart hurt and her throat feel like she was trying to swallow her own fist. It was unbearable and she had no idea why. She needed to find this person and hug him as hard as she could, never letting him go; a strange thought considering she had no clue who this person was. Too bad for her everything was so dark and she could barely move.
"It's okay, Karin," the first voice said. It sounded just as distant, and seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time. "He's alive, and that's what matters. He can recover from anything. Just look at me. What about Tali?"
Though she felt relief at hearing the man would be okay, she still felt like she needed to make sure, to check for herself, almost as if it were her duty. This Tali person also seemed familiar, but not like the man. She had a vague, detached sense that whoever Tali was, she would be okay, but the man... He needed help. In the total darkness, she reached a hand out, groping for something with which she could hoist herself upright and begin her search for the mystery-man.
"She's just over there, behind the curtain," the second, older woman said, "She got a minor dose of whatever that monster hit your brother with-"
Brother? That sounds right... Is that man her brother? And she feels like she's family... My sister. That means the man is my brother also, doesn't it? He's family. Now why can't I remember a thing like that?
Grabbing a hold of the low railing attached parallel to the bed where she lay, still unable to see, she began lifting herself up. The task was arduous, but she felt herself making progress.
"-and she should be fine. Whatever it was, it almost mirrors the symptoms of a nerve agent, so we're treating for that. It was smart of you to call for Lia. I wouldn't have thought to let her suit put her under anesthesia."
"Why did it do that?" her sister asked, "Why'd ya let it do that?"
"I didn't, at first. I tried to counteract the suit's drugs before Lia stopped me," the older lady said, "Apparently, it's very hard to put a quarian in a coma, medically induced, caused by an ardat yakshi, or otherwise. More often than not, it will either kill them or their higher brain functions will cease but the lower ones won't. The reason is their autonomic nervous system is profoundly more developed compared to a human's. So much so that it will not only continue to function when the rest of their brain is out, but do a damn fine job of it."
"Right, I guess I can see how evolving that sort of mechanism would be useful," said her sister, "So why put her under?"
"Useful a million years ago, maybe, or even slightly useful on some medieval quarian battlefield, but quite the opposite in this day and age. According to Lia, if we hadn't done it, she would have torn her suit off, ran straight for John-"
JOHN. John Shepard. That was the man's name!
The room seemed less dark, blurry shapes melting and forming before her eyes. She kicked a foot off her bed and landed face-first onto the floor. Though well insulated from sound and affording some level of impact protection inside her helm, there wasn't much she could do about her nose smacking against her visor. A warm dampness began spreading over her upper lip.
"-And tried to rip apart anyone who got too close to him... What was that noise?"
She could see the shadows of both women as they stood and made their way to her hospital bed, throwing the curtain aside. She looked up from the floor, rolling onto her back to get a better view of the pair. The younger one with the red hair was immediately recognizable as someone close to her; her sister, she assumed. The other one was less familiar, but things were beginning to come back to her.
The pair helped her to shaky feet and sat her down on her bed against her meager struggles.
"Where's my brother...?" she pleaded, "Our brother...?"
"You don't have a brother," said her sister.
"I do!" she tried to yell, adding, "Our brother! His name... You just said it. I can't remember... But you just said it. 'Juh' something... He's our brother Ancestors damn it! Your brother! What happened to us? Don't tell me you can't you remember your own brother?!"
"Tali-"
So she was Tali. That made sense. The name had a familiar ring to it.
"-I have a brother. His name is John-"
That was her brother's name. She felt relieved at hearing it again, despite having some rather odd feelings about the man.
"-And he's your husband," said her sister, "Almost."
And that explained the odd feelings. strangely enough, of all the questions flying through her head at that very moment, the most pressing seemed to be, "Almost? What's the hold-up?"
They way the two humans began chuckling told her that this was either a very typical thing for her to say or a very atypical one. She laughed too, more to feel like part of the group than because she understood what was so funny, though her laughter sounded markedly different from theirs.
That's when a thought occurred to her. "Wait. I'm not human, am I?"
Apparently, they thought this was even more funny than her previous comment.
"No, you're not," said Jane, smiling cheerfully.
She remembered her... Sister's... Name, which was a good thing, she figured.
"So, we're not sisters?"
"Eh, technically, maybe not," her not-sister admitted, "But I think we are. We've been through so much more than any blood relatives have been. I think of you as my younger sister... and, um, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you have some memory loss?"
"Brain scans show that many of the dormant areas of her medial temporal lobe are still awakening," Karin said to her sister. Then to her, "You were in a coma, but you'll be fine shortly."
"Don't worry about me," she said to the women, "Where's John? What happened to him? What happened to us?"
"You were attacked by an ardat-yakshi-"
"Morinth," Tali growled, "Where is she? I've got something to take care of."
She managed to plant both feet on the floor before Jane had her hands firmly around her shoulders. For her part, Chakwas must have known when it was a good idea to stay the human Hell away and retreated several steps back. She probably still had vivid memories of Tali almost killing an entire escape pod's worth of crew in an attempt to save John.
"Where the fre'eg is she?" Tali hissed, struggling fruitlessly against the heavily cybernetic human. "Sis, get off me! I've just got to handle one little thing!"
"No," said the human, "You're not going to kill her. Even after what she did, it's still murder."
"Murder!" Tali screeched, "She's the murderer here! A criminal!"
"A defenseless criminal," said the Spectre, using all her weight to press the quarian back into bed, "That means it's still murder."
"I'll give her a gun!" Tali tried to pry the woman's fingers from her suit, "Get the fre'eg off me!"
"John needs you!" said Jane, just as Tali was about to roll out from underneath her, "He needs you now, not her."
At hearing those words, she froze.
"Morinth will still be there," the woman said, "locked up when he recovers."
"Where is he?" asked Tali, her eyes immediately shooting over to the curtained-off bed to her right, "How bad? Will he recover? I need to see him."
Jane released her and the engineer got to her feet in an instant, rushing to his bedside.
"He'll recover just fine," said Karin, "But for the time being, we need to keep him under. He... Received a more substantial dose than you did."
Going against all medical advice that the doctor was probably too scared to give and not caring in the slightest, Tali crawled into bed with the man, cradling his head as she pressed his face to her visor. She moved gently, to be sure, not jostling the tubes and catheters that adorned his body. Once in position, she slid his bed sheets out from underneath her and pulled them over her, deciding to rest her head on his chest and doing her best to wrap her arms around the man.
After a moment's thought, she draped his limp arm around her shoulder, hoping if she remained still it would stay, only to have it fall away from her after a handful of seconds.
"Ancestors, God, please, please forgive me," she whispered.
...
"Hey there."
Tali didn't look up as the dark-haired human woman spoke, noticing her out of the corner of her eye as she entered the med-bay. She could not be bothered to pry her attention away from her omni-tool as it read her inszel's vitals, just as she couldn't be bothered to pry her hand from his. It was morning and she sat in the chair next to her fallen human, lying in bed for such an extended period having taken its toll on her joints. She could only imagine what it was doing to him.
"I said, 'Hey, LT,'" Ashley said, pulling up a seat across from the quarian.
"How's Kaidan?" Tali asked, idly wondering if the human marine had taken her husband's name or if he had taken hers.
Quarians took the male's clan-name, but her understanding of humans told her that, in general, gender roles were reversed for them. This disappointed her because Ashley Alenko had a much better sound to it than Kaidan Williams.
"I'm not sure," the human said, "He's with your people now... I thought you might get the word on that before I did, and are you seriously asking about Kaidan after what you and John just went through? You're too much, Tali."
"Eh..." The quarian looked away and shook her head, "I guess it's easier to ask about your mate than to think about mine."
She stood and started pacing about the room, Ashley's eyes following her as she moved. After the first few laps from the front door to the AI core, the human held out a food tube, which Tali accepted without looking.
"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about," said Ash, "You know, talk about what happened."
Tali made a snorting noise. "I'll pass. Thanks for the chow."
"Don't mention it. Well, it is part of my new training, you know," said the human, "I'm here if you need me."
"Good to know," said Tali. She stopped by one of the medical instruments at the corner of the room, peering into its gauges as she connected the nutrient-paste tube to he helmet. After a few moments of sucking in silence, she turned back to the woman. "What is it you do, exactly, anyway? You're a kind of a shaman, aren't you?"
"Sort of, yeah," Ash said with a smile, "But human generally call them priests."
"Right," said Tali, taking a seat across from the human, "I had to use the krogan word, but I knew what you were talking about."
"Quarians don't have priests?" the older woman asked.
"They do," said Tali, "But the word we use is 'Profit' which will translate to something different in your language."
"Profit?" the human asked.
"Yes," the quarian said with a nod, "Exactly"
"But what's the quarian word?"
"For 'Profit'? It's Profit. You know, 'Profit of the Ancestors' and all that. But I didn't use it because your spiritual leaders don't do what a Profit does, not anymore anyway, if I've been reading your texts correctly."
"The funny thing is," said Ashley, "'Profit' sounds the same in both languages. Weird."
Tali allowed herself a brief smile and began tapping on the side of her helmet, right about where the center of her ear would be.
"Oh." Ashley began rubbing her forehead with a palm. "Translators, right. Sometimes I forget that you don't speak Spanish."
"And sometimes I forget that you don't speak Khelish," said Tali, cocking her head to the side, "What's Spanish?"
"Only the third-most common language of the human race," she said with a shrug, "Second-most if you only count native speakers. And Kaidan doesn't speak a word of it."
"Yeah, John is the same way and so am I," said Tali, "But at least he's trying. English is so hard though."
"It is," said Ashley, "I had to learn it a long time ago, it was terrible, and I ended up forgetting it all within a year of getting my own translator. If I got hit with something that knocked out my implant, Kaidan and I would be reduced to using hand-signs to communicate."
"You know, that can be a lot of fun if you love each other," said Tali, "I've got tons of implants, but the translator is in my helm. It's considered a luxury; non-health-essential. So, most of the time whenever I take my suit off around John, I do without it just to hear him bark. It's the cutest thing."
"We bark?"
"Yeah," Tali said with a shrug, "And when John turns his off, he tells me I sometimes chirp, sometimes meow."
"I can see that."
"One time I got really mad at him," she said, "And he didn't have his translator running. As I'm yelling at him, he started laughing at me! And that just made me madder, which only made it worse for him, or better I guess, and he ended up rolling on the floor in hysterics. Seeing him like that was so cute and funny that I couldn't stay mad. I don't even remember why I was so upset."
Ashley and Tali fell into a comfortable silence together, before Tali spoke up. "So, what does a priest do?"
"A priest tends to the spiritual needs of her- or his- parishioners," she said as if reading a textbook answer, "A chaplain, however, which is also what I am, does this. Talks. Counsels. Keeps confidence. Nothing more, unless specifically requested."
"I like that," said Tali, "I don't feel like I'm going to get damned to der'vak for not believing."
"Alright," Ash said, standing, "I'm going to get going, but I'll be checking in on you. And you can always come find me if you want to talk. It's a small ship."
She left Tali with a pat on the shoulder which the engineer hand't minded. The human woman was part of the Old Guard, maybe that had been the reason. Maybe that, and maybe something more. She began to wonder if perhaps she would sit next to Ashley at dinner this evening.
...
Just After The Previous Chapter
...
"Morinth, step to the door, turn around, and cuff up. We want to talk to you."
Garrus waited another half a minute or so with no response forthcoming from the woman. Her hands had yet to make an appearance in slim access hatch in her cell door, normally used for depositing her food trays, and she had not made a single sound. He resisted the urge to lean down and look through the waist-level, twelve by thirty centimeter slot set in solid ceramic-steel alloy. That was a good way to receive anything from a biotic blast, a punch, or a load a feces right in the face.
He held Jane back just as she tried to do exactly that. Beside the human, Samara looked on with a concerned expression, an odd sight on the normally stoic woman. He felt it too; something was off.
"Morinth!" he called again, "Cuff up!"
"That's it," said Jane, "I'm going in there, cuffed or not-"
"Wait, Jane," said the turian, a hand coming to rest on her shoulder, "Let's at least have EDI scan the room to get a better idea of where she is in there. After that, we can get a team together to do an extraction. Sounds fair?"
Jane appeared to mull over the idea before answering. "We'll scan the room, but I don't think we need a team. She's a civilian, after all. EDI?"
"I cannot scan the room with the defensive mass effect field in place," said the AI.
Jane pulled her shotgun from the small of her back, extending it to hold at the ready. Garrus put his flexi-cuffs away and drew his rifle. Samara's finger hovered about the grip of her pistol, recently returned to her.
"Lower the field then, EDI," said Jane.
"The scan is complete and the field is back in place," the AI said almost immediately, "Although it is no longer necessary. Morinth is dead."
"What?!" Jane yelled, collapsing her weapon. "How the hell is that possible? Open this door."
The door slid open, lights flickered to life, and Garrus entering first.
"How could this have happened?" Jane asked as she followed behind the turian. "Was it suicide? Did someone slip her some poison in her food tray? What?"
"I don't think it was any of those, Jane,"
He stopped in the middle of the small room. Turning to the human, he made a token effort to block her from going any further. The last thing he wanted her to see was the crumpled remnants of what might have been an asari. The only way he could even make a guess came from what his visor told him. The dark-blue, mostly dry slime that encrusted the walls from floor to ceiling, what he had initially thought was textured paint, had a high amount of cobalt and levo proteins. Asari blood.
Jane moved past him, as he knew she would. At seeing the heap of mangled flesh on the ground, she swallowed hard. Her eyes went wide; an indication in humans that meant she suddenly realized something.
"EDI, shut this door now," she called, just as their resident Justicar had been about to enter. "Tell Samara to wait for us in her room or the mess hall."
The door slammed shut and Jane grabbed the turian's arm, wrapping her fingers around his bicep.
"What the fuck, babe?" she said, shaking her head in disbelief, "What could have done this? It looks like she was mauled by a tiger."
"A large Terran predator," he said, looking the term up on his eyepiece, "Particularly vicious. Seems fitting."
"Seriously," she said, "She looks... She looks half eaten."
He brought a free hand to hers where she held his arm. The woman responded to his touch and took his hand, holding onto it tightly.
"I don't think she was eaten," he said, examining the room, "I mean, her chest and abdominal cavities have been torn out, but...," he took one last look around the room, "All the organs have been accounted for. Some of them look pretty damaged, crushed and stepped on. A couple have been ripped apart. But they're all here."
"And the limbs?" the woman asked, nodding to the mutilated lump at her feet, "Where are they?"
Garrus scanned the room again. "Yeah, I was wondering that myself at first. One leg is over there. The other leg is actually twisted beneath her, I think. I'm pretty sure that might be an arm by the sink, assuming that's an elbow, and... Oh wait-" He got down on a knee, pointing beneath the cot. "Here's the other arm."
"I think I'm going to be sick," his fiance said, "Do we... Do we gather this up? Move it? Or is it evidence? What do we do here?"
"This is a crime scene," he said, "Because I'm ninety-nine percent that we can rule out suicide, although a varren could have snuck aboard while we were at Omega. That means I've got to document all this. It won't take long. After that, yeah, we need to clean this place up. It's a biohazard, and besides, for Samara's sake, there's probably some kind of asari death-ritual to observe."
"I'll have Miri get a crewman down here."
"Make sure they're trained in handling biological waste," he said, "And they need to be wearing a suit. Lord knows what kind of diseases Morinth might have had. Too bad Tali's still recuperating. She'd be perfect."
"A quarian? Dealing with biological waste?"
"No one knows more about it than them," he said, "And she's already got a sealed suit. Not to mention that with all this infectious levo gunk in here, a dextro crewman might be a good choice."
"Oh." Jane began scratching her chin in thought. "She's gonna hate me for this, but there's always Lia. Biology is her thing and, since Kenn's been in engineering, she's been working with both Chakwas and Mordin. I think this sort of thing falls to the medical staff by default, anyway."
Turning away from Jane, Garrus began his examination in earnest, taking detailed holo and two-dimensional images of every square millimeter of the room and its contents. Immediately, he noticed two important clues, both confirmed by his visor with ninety-nine point nine percent certitude.
The first discovery to catch his attention, or lack of a discovery, rather, was the digit-prints. Talons, feelers, and fingers all left a kind of trace imprint on whatever they touched. Whether in the victim's blood, from the oils in the attacker's skin, or the transfer of matter at the molecular level, there should be something. In this case, the only prints in the room were the consistent, fine dots of an asari, an exact match for Morinth's. A few nanograms of inorganic polymer were smudged on surfaces here and there, a remnant of either the asari's black cat-suit or the killer's gloves. There was no way to know.
His second discovery closed the case. A deep purple impression marred the section of skin and meat flayed away from the asari's stomach. A matching bruise appeared up by the dead woman's clavicle. It looked like someone had tried to tear her hide clean off her body, and had mostly succeeded. The marks clearly showed a pair of three fingered hands impressed on the flesh. The width suggested they were not left by a krogan, or at least not one as large as the only one aboard, and the length said they did not belong to a salarian. As for turians, Garrus for damn sure didn't did not mutilate the woman. That only left-
"Where's Lia?" he asked suddenly.
Jane inquired her omni-tool, but a response came in the form of a knocking from the cell door.
"Is Samara out there?" Jane called as she moved to unlock the entrance manually.
"No," came the muffled reply, "I passed her getting out of the lift."
Ever eager to please her well-paying hosts, Lia had made her way down to the cargo bay less than a minute after the captain's call. The mammalian smile that had reached her eyes, so much like Jane's, vanished almost immediately as soon as she entered. He could hear the sound of vomit hitting the inside of the girl's face mask. I guess that rules her out, then.
He activated his omni-tool. "Gabby, how's engineering?" he asked.
"Busy. With Tali out of commission, me and the Kens have been having to play catch-up. We're billing the twins for this. Triple overtime."
"So, both of them have been with you the entire time since Tali went to the Med-bay?" he asked, "Kenn and Kenneth?"
"Well yeah. My Ken had to leave once or twice to use the bathroom, but not Kenn! He just been using his suit."
Garrus stood and turned to Jane, locking eyes with the woman.
"I know what happened here," he said, "This is the worst case of suicide I've ever seen."
...
"What the actual fuck, Tali?!" Jane screamed into the girl's visor, "Did you think I wouldn't figure it out?"
She clenched her fists in rage, silently debating where and if to punch the girl, her sister in everything but name and biology. The idea vanished as quickly as it came. She would never strike the young woman, for one, and two, she actually felt a twinge of fear at the idea of Tali striking back.
She stared down at the girl sitting next to her unconscious brother's hospital bed, fuming as she waited for a response. A chill ran up her neck as Tali pulled her hand away from her brother's, glowing eyes silently regarding her.
"What do you mean, Sis?" the quarian asked a little too innocently.
The engineer uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, turning her attention back to John, beginning to run a hand through his hair.
"You know what I mean," she replied, "That dumb little girl act of yours might have worked two years ago, but not now, and definitely not with me. Now start talking or I'll show you the down side of having an older sister."
"You're going to have to be more specific," Tali said in that same sweet voice.
Slowly, the quarian uncrossed her legs and got to her feet, making a show of standing at her full height. Jane suppressed the urge to swallow as the quarian girl- no, woman- approached to within a step of her, looking down on her through an impassive visor.
When she didn't slouch, Tali was almost as tall as her brother, a full one-point-eight meters in height. With her boots and helm, she was just as tall as him. The captain had to crane her neck to make eye contact with the combat engineer while images of what was left of Morinth flooded her mind. She would never have thought Tali capable of doing such a thing, much less capable of harming her captain, but now...
"Morinth is dead," Jane finally conceded.
"Oh?" Tali said, taking a step back, "How ever did she die?"
"Garrus said it was suicide," she said, "And then walked off. There's exactly three people on this ship who he'd spew that shite for, and they're all in this room."
"You don't believe him?" asked Tali, "He seems to know what he's talking about most of the time."
"He's covering for you," she said.
"What makes you say that?" Tali resumed her seat next to John as Jane surprised herself by breathing a sigh of relief.
"Because, Tali, it's really hard to tear your own guts out, rip off your limbs, scatter them about a room, and break almost every bone in your own body."
The quarian cocked her head to the side. "What?"
This was not the reaction she had been expecting. Jane knew Tali, and the young woman was definitely surprised to hear this news.
"You heard me," the captain said, "It looked like an abattoir from hell in there. Blood covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Her rib cage had been opened up like a pair of cabinet doors and her insides yanked out like stuffing from a mattress. All of her organs were crushed and thrown across the room. Her vertebrae were broken and scattered like dice. I mean honestly, Tali, you must have been completely covered in blood. What did you do to her? Try to eat her then get angry when you couldn't fit her parts through your food-port?"
"Jane... I... I didn't do that," the young woman said, stuttering and shaking her head, "I don't remember..."
"Where have you been the last couple of hours?" Jane asked.
"Here!" said Tali, "Here, and with Kelly, and I was in the bathroom for a few minutes. Ask her. Ask EDI and Joker."
"EDI?"
"I can confirm lieutenant Zorah's whereabouts," said the AI.
"I'm not going to suggest you hacked her," said Jane, "But I don't think you're innocent and that's a hell of a lot better than thinking my own ship is complicit in a homicide, albeit a justifiable one."
"Jane... I didn't do what you think I did," said the engineer.
The captain sighed and pulled up a chair, taking a seat at her brother's other side. With Tali holding the man's left hand, she took hold of his right.
"It doesn't matter," the woman, "With John's Spectre status, he'd probably clear you as soon as he wakes. Hell, I'd clear you myself, if only you'd admit it to me. Then I'd beat your arse for going behind my back and disobeying a direct order."
"You'd clear me of murder?"
"Yeah, then beat your arse," she said, "don't forget that part. Honestly though, Tali, I know what she did... But you still need help. That wasn't murder. That was something else entirely."
"Jane, I really didn't do what you think I did," the girl said, pulling her hand away from John's to twiddle her fingers, "I mean, I don't remember anything like... like what you're suggesting happened."
"Right, well, it doesn't matter, now does it?" the Spectre said with a smirk, "You've got witnesses to your alibi, EDI decided to clean the bay right after the time of death and erase any footprints, and my future fucking husband declared this wild quarian mauling to be a suicide."
"But I don't think-"
"How strong are you with your cybernetics and combat stims, anyway?" Jane interrupted.
"Stronger than an asari," Tali mumbled.
"Ha!"
...
Tali awoke to the sound of knocking. It was early morning as she lay beside John, taking in his warmth as she had done each of the two nights since she awoke after the incident. Sleeping without him next to her seemed abominable and, vaguely, she wondered how bad it would have been if he had died.
She turned her head to see a lithe human female form standing halfway in the doorway of the medbay, the woman gently rapping her knuckles against the frame. Jane and the good doctor were nowhere to be found, leaving the rest of the room empty save for herself and her soon-to-be ex-fiancé.
She hadn't realized she had been dreading this moment until she actually came face-to-face with Her. She gave a mental shrug, deciding this was for the best anyway. She had hurt him in a way worse than death; complete and utter betrayal. She had her chance with the greatest man in the known universe, and she blew it all to human hell. It was an opportunity far greater than any other love-sick quarian alive could have hoped for, so she should be happy for the little time she had.
There were such things as sore losers in this galaxy, and Tali was determined not to be one of them.
"He's all yours Jack, just please let me stay beside him for a bit longer."
"Huh?" The human cocked her head to the side like a curious animal.
"You win," the quarian said, "I'm not going to try to stop you, or him. I know who the better woman is."
Jack gave the woman a guttural snort as she pulled up a seat to John's other side, not even trying to stop the chair from loudly scraping across the floor. She was more reserved in appearance, Tali noted, trading in her leather straps for a thin, white, sleeveless t-shirt and black, animal-skin jacket. The shirt was low-cut, but with hardly any bust to speak of, the human showed no cleavage. On the one hand, her attire appeared more modest, but on the other, the thin fabric did little to hide the hard bumps of her nipples with the jacket open.
The convict was trying, at least, which was good. It meant that John had had an effect on her, a thought that brought a cheerless half-smile to the quarians lips. There was hope for a future together for the humans.
"The fuck are you talking about, Princess?"
Or not. If anyone could mix disbelief with disgust, it was Jack.
"I did this to him, convict," Tali hissed, "I'm stepping down, giving him to you, breaking off the engage-"
"The fuck you are." This time there was a warning in her voice, attested to by the blue light slowly growing and shimmering around her, "If you want to give him to me, fine, I'll fuck him sideways, up one side of this ship and down the other, six days a week and twice on Sunday. But I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you leave him or break off your engagement."
"You don't get to tell me what to do with my life," Tali said, sitting up in bed to face the woman, her toes digging into the mattress.
"Listen, Princess," said Jack, pointing a wary finger at the other woman, "For one thing, I don't give a fuck what you did to that blue piece of shit down there, you don't scare me. For another, I don't give a fuck about your life, or telling you how to live it."
The ex-con put a hand on John's shoulder, "I care about him. He's my commander and a damn good friend. As far as I'm concerned, that means I get to say whatever I want if it affects him."
"Fine then," said Tali, falling back to the bed, "You're being stupid. What part of 'I almost raped John to death' don't you get?"
"Feel guilty all you want," said the human, "But you're the idiot here. It wasn't your fucking fault! What part of that don't you get, you miserable little twat? He'll know that and he's madly in love with you, besides. He wouldn't ever want to dump your sorry ass."
"But I'm no good for him!"
"Don't fuckin' pretend you know what's good for him," Jack growled, "God almighty, I fucking hate when you bitches do that! If you want to leave him-"
"I don't!"
"Don't interrupt me!" Jack stuck a finger right in the center of Tali's visor, "If you want to leave him, do it for your own reasons, fine, great, but don't ever act like hurting that man like that is going to be for his own good. Let him decide what's good for him, not you."
"But he's just going to leave anyway," Tali said, looking down at the man as she ran a hand through his hair, "It's the right decision."
"Fuck you, it's right!" Jack screamed. It was a wonder she had not attracted more attention to the medbay. "You can't talk to him, so you can't know that. Just stop the insanity long enough for him to wake up, will you?"
Tali blinked, literally and figuratively. What were the chances that she was letting her emotions- guilt, fear, anger- override her common sense? What were the odds that Jack of all people would be the one to talk some sense into her? She decided that on both counts, the odds were at least fifty-fifty.
She had figured that John would leave her the instant he awoke and remembered what had happened to him, remembered what she forced him to do, but that was not necessarily the case. If Jack sincerely meant her words, that she simply would not claim John for the sake of all of Tali's failings, something she could surely do with ease, then there might be hope for the quarian yet. There was a chance, a slim chance, that she could beg the human male's forgiveness and perhaps prove herself to him once again. He might see things the way his crew saw it, after all.
A chance was better than nothing, surely, and what alternative did she have?
She must have been pondering Jack's words for longer than she realized, as it startled her when the other woman lightly coughed to get her attention. She almost jumped from the bed before turning to her with a questioning glare.
"Can I hold his hand?" the human asked, motioning to it with her eyes. She had an innocent look about her, almost cute. It was quite unnatural for her and disarming at the same time.
Tali found it hard to refuse. "I still remember how you threw yourself onto that grenade for me," she said, nodding once.
...
"Hmmm... Why the hell does my head hurt so bad?"
John groaned as he rolled his head to the side. Trying to open his eyes, he shut them almost immediately under the onslaught of what felt like ten-thousand lumens of sterile fluorescent light. He groaned, willing himself back to a sleep that he knew would not come. The pounding in his head told him that was impossible.
He began to notice a soft, comfortable weight in each hand. He felt three gloved fingers in one, and five slender but rough fingers in the other. He gave them both a squeeze, causing their owners to stir. He heard a gasp as the women- he assumed that was the case- shifted in their seats. He rolled his eyes as he opened them. The man was getting damn tired of waking up in hospital beds.
Above him, a pair of wide, iridescent orbs hovered, their light dimmed by a lavender tinted visor. He could see the smile on his fiance's face, a good thing to be sure. Although she would probably be smiling at him even if he had been a paraplegic, he could tell that that probably was not the case. He smiled back as he shifted his gaze to the left, wondering who's thumb was currently rubbing the inside of his wrist. All expression left his face the instant he figured it out.
His reaction came from surprise, mostly, as he could not quite believe what he saw. Sitting at his bedside opposite Tali, holding his hand and smiling meekly, was the last person in the galaxy he expected to be sharing a room with his fiance, let alone holding his hand in her presence. He should have been wondering why in the hell he was in the medbay again, but that took an immediate back seat to why his quarian, as beautiful as she was possessive, was not currently tearing Jack's head off for her presumptuousness.
"Tali, Jack, good morning," he said, "Is it morning?"
"No," said Tali. The engineer pressed the vocalizer to his lips before resuming her seat, the girl's smile never leaving her face.
He saw her eyes turn to Jack's ministrations as she added her own. Her expression refused to waiver as she looked back to him, completely unfazed by the other woman. What in the hell is going on here? Has Tali gone off the deep end? I feel like she's done something like this before, recently, but that seems wrong.
He decided to ignore the elephant in the room for the moment. "So... What did I do this time?"
"You mean what happened to land you in intensive care?" Tali asked.
He nodded to her before glancing at Jack. The convict shifted her gaze downward, appearing morose.
"It's not what you did," said the quarian, "It's what I did."
...
John kept nodding as Tali explained herself, what had happened, what John did, and what she did to him. He nodded even harder every time Jack interrupted to mitigate Tali's self-incrimination, usually to explain about how anyone would have been powerless against an ardat-yakshi. At one point, the convict even had to brow-beat Tali's stammering into submission with harsh whispers, using her tablet to pull up an article on the subject and handing over for him to read. Not knowing the first thing about science or biotics, beyond his very limited ability to give ammunition an extra kick, he understood very little of what he read. It seemed that very precise biotic control combined an instinctual asari sense of nervous systems could stimulate certain parts of any race's brain.
Despite how Tali kept insisting that everything had been her own fault, John had come to the exact opposite conclusion almost immediately. Jack's information had only proved it beyond all doubt.
"Tali," said the commander, "Please stop."
"But John-"
"No, Tali. My head hurts and I don't believe you anyway." He did not mean for it to sound that harsh, but his head really did hurt and the girl was too much some times.
"Right, so, I think Jack could make you very happy," she said.
"Yeah, she's great, but-" John cocked his head to the side as he processed what she had said. Things were still moving slow in his mind, but he was sure that not only had her words held the stink of resignation, but she meant 'happy' in a way other than as a subordinate soldier. "Wait... What do you mean by that?"
"Haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying?" the quarian asked.
"...No."
Jack snort a laugh while Tali visibly fumed.
"I'm still not right in the head," he explained, rubbing his brow.
When Tali spoke, her voice was barely a whisper, "I'm saying that, after all this, do you think it's possible that Jack could be a better bondmate than me...?"
John cocked his head to the side. He must have been more brain damaged than he thought, because he could have sworn that Tali, his Tali, had just broken off their relationship. Up until that point, he had been ninety-nine percent sure that quarians could not do that, or at least could not do that with virtually any hope of re-bonding. In that sense, they were no different than devout Catholics and their views on marriage.
"Are you... Leaving me?" he asked, still dumbfounded.
"No!" the quarian said, "But I think maybe... You should consider leaving me..."
Guilt was one thing, but Tali was just being stupid at this point. Sure, some pretty terrible things had happened, but to blame herself for something that an asari monster had done was ridiculous. Being honest with himself, John remembered being quite turned on by the act, not disgusted with it, nor feeling unfaithful, nor a whole host of other emotions. His hesitation had come only from the fact that Tali might have regretted her- and his- decision in the morning. Under that asari's spell, had he thought they would be okay with it when all was said and done, he would have been as eager as his quarian fiance.
"Come one, Tali," he said, "You've got to be kidding me."
"I'm scared that I'm no good for you John. You should at least consider leaving me."
He stared at the woman, dumbfounded. Is this really how it's going to be? Ended like this?
"Fuck it all, Princess," said Jack, pulling the man out of his stupor, "That wasn't the deal."
"Deal?" asked John, "Is this some game? What's going on here?!"
"Princess was supposed to lay it all out for you and see how you take it," said the convict, "You don't blame her, so that's it. Things go back to normal. She's not supposed to throw you in my lap like a dog with a used-up chew-toy, as much as I wouldn't mind it."
Tali stared at the man and said nothing, subtly confirming the other woman's statement. John rolled his eyes. He had had enough of this. Few times in his life, if any, had seen the man genuinely mad at the quarian. This was one of those times. That Jack was actually on the side of Tali and him remaining together spoke volumes of her character and only underscored her commitment to becoming a better person, to thinking about more than herself. She had seen such brutal treatment in her life, and it had hardened her, changed her to be sure, but at her core she was a damn good person. It's not fair to her. In another life...
He squeezed the quarian's hand much harder than he intended to. The girl winced but did not try to pull herself from his grasp, giving him firm grip of her own in return. "Tali. Pull your head out of your ass for a second and listen to me."
"Damn!' Jack said, laughing and stomping her feet jovially, "This is gonna be good."
Tali snarled at the convict, which did nothing to dampen the human woman's attitude, before turning back to John. "I'm listening," she said.
"I don't think I've ever really been upset with you," he said, "Until now."
"I'm sorry..." she mumbled.
"You should be, but not for the reason you seem to think," he said, letting his words sink in. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "If it sounds like I'm laying this all out on the table to make you feel bad, it's cause I am. Jack, you can leave before this gets any worse."
"I'd like her to stay," said Tali.
"And I'd like to hear this," Jack said with a smile. She had to know where he was going with this, though perhaps not to the extent he was prepared to take things.
"Fine," he sighed, "The first few times were cute. The next few, I tried to ignore. But now, now I've had enough of this self-pity nonsense. It's too much. I know that your self esteem, when it comes to personal relationships at least, isn't that great. I know you've probably got trust issues for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which are that I'm a human and I already left you once two years ago. I get that. But I'm not, ever, leaving you, if I can help it. That's the point of marriage. Get that through that helmet of yours. No matter what happens, I know you'll never willingly hurt me, but it seems like you're sure as hell trying-"
The girl let out a short gasp.
Good.
He pointed a finger right at her, "This is the last time, you hear me? You think you're trying to look out for me, to not hurt me by leaving me, but that's about the most ass-backwards thing I've ever heard of."
"Told you," said Jack.
John ignored her. "From this moment onward, all is forgiven, understand?"
Tali nodded. "Yes..."
"Good. Now where are my pants?" As Tali got up to retrieve them he added, "Just get my wallet."
She held out the leather billfold for the man, but he shook his head.
"You open it," he said.
As she did so, he pointed to one of the pockets. She began rifling through one of them before the Spectre shook his head, "No, that one. The right one."
This happened a few more times before the quarian settled on the pocket he had indicated. She began tilting her head sideways almost as soon as her fingertips graced the smooth leather, feeling the slight embossed material that lay beneath. If she didn't know for certain what he had placed in there, she had to have an idea by now.
The quarian tore into the wallet, pulling free a shining silver and gold slip of metal with a small diamond embedded deep inside. Intricate designs covering it both front and back. Her hand slapped to her chest a moment later as she eyed the man. "This is..."
John simply nodded.
"After the last time..." she whispered, furiously rubbed at the center of her chest, trying to find something that wasn't there. "After the last time we... I didn't notice. I never bumped into anything... I've always avoided touching the area..."
"It's the same metal, just more of it," he said, "And the same jewel, but better protected. I took that ring that ring out of your suit-pocket the last time you had it off. It was tearing up your sternum pretty bad. And the scars... They're they only thing about you that isn't flawless."
Jack made a show of sticking a finger down her throat, but the pair ignored the convict for the time being.
"Scars heal," she said. "You really do mean it, don't you? About being with me?"
"Yes, Tali, I do," he said, "Do you get it now? Do you know what I mean when I say that?"
"Yes, John, I do." She bent down and gave the man a careful embrace, holding him just tight enough to convey her feelings. "And I swear, I'm with you to the end, no matter what, no matter if you become a reaper or I do, we're in this together forever."
"Tell me something, Tali," he said, "And answer truthfully."
"Anything, Saera," she whispered, reaching out to play with his fingers.
"You knew I wasn't going to leave you, didn't you?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied, intently watching his hands in hers, "I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't sure you'd stay."
"Then why all this?"
"Because I had to be really sure."
He smiled down at her, though she wouldn't look him in the eyes. "You've got to be the stupidest smart person I've ever met."
"Yeah... But I'm learning."
...
"Where am I"
"Lieutenant Alenko, how did you sleep?"
He turned his head to the tinny yet sultry voice, tinged with what sounded to his ears like an English accent. He instantly recognized the woman from last night's examination. Behind her stood a male quarian in a red suit. He dimly remembered him mentioning that he was a friend of John and Tali's the night before.
"Good to see you Admiral," he said, throwing himself out of bed and offering her his best salute.
Instead of returning the gesture, she gently grabbed his hand and pushed it down. Placing a firm hand on his shoulder, the woman ushered him back to a seat on his bedside.
"Please," she said, a smile in her eyes, "Let's not stand on ceremony here, mister Alenko. You are my patient today, not my subordinate. 'Doctor' will do fine."
"And you are?" he asked the other man, "I'm sure you told me, but I wasn't in quite the right frame of mind to remember. You were a friend of John's, right?"
"Kal," the man said, extending his hand, "And yeah, Shep and I go way back."
He nodded to the man and turned back to his hostess.
"Alright, Doctor," he said with a nod, "Sounds good to me. Is this it? Am I done? Cured?"
"Not exactly," she said, picking up a hand-held device of some kind, "We will begin the first phase of your treatment now."
"Well, okay," he said, searching his pockets and coming up empty, "But I need my meds. Where are my meds? If I don't get them, of if I don't get put under, I'll be writhing in agony in the next few minutes here."
"Yes," she said, "You're fine now because you just woke up, but if you remain awake your neurons will begin entering a feedback loop. It would be extremely painful."
"I know," he said, standing from the bed. Something didn't feel right. "That's why I need those meds."
"You don't understand," she said. She turned to the other quarian, "Leave us."
He gave the woman a curt nod and turned on a heel to leave, closing a heavy metal door behind him.
"You see, to find out how to cure your brain," she said, closing the distance between him and her, "We need to find out what it's doing when it malfunctions."
"You... Monster! You can't do this to me!" He body flashed bright blue, a biotic aura surrounding him. In an instant, he fell to the floor in agony.
"I wouldn't do that," she said, "Attacking me or using your biotics. It will only make the process more painful. Try not to worry too much, Darling. I did install some thermal regulators in your skull while you slept. The should keep the heat in your brain a full thirty percent below terminal."
...
Please review! Let me know I should keep writing.
Also, no points have yet been awarded for uncovering my secret fic.
Next chapter will have more Shakarian, I swear, including how Jane reacts to Tali's cover-up.